Wae Rebo, The Unique Living Of Flores

Wae rebo, jewel in the middle of the mountains, which has million stunning beautiful sight that you will not find at anywhere in the world. Wae Rebo issurrounded by the mountains and the dense forest, with elevations of 1,200 meters above sea level in Flores Island, East Nusa Tenggara.

via anekatempatwisata.com

It is an isolated small ancient village in Satar Lenda, west Satarmese district, Manggarai, and can be reached by climbing the mountain in about four and a half hours. The villageis not only offering the beautiful view but also the traditional rural life of the people there.

Unlike the other traditional villages which have different clans, there is only one clan alone in Wae Rebo. This clan has a relic tambour in the main pillar of tambour house and for them, it is taboo to eat a weasel.

They believed that a weasel is a part of their ancestors. This urband legend came with a story that a long long time ago, their ancestors came to Wae Rebo with accompany of the weasel. The Ancestors of Wae Rebo leave in seven cone traditional houses, which is still stand preciously, even though it was corrupt because of the age and some of them have broke.

This unique village has a very attractive traditional house Wae Rebo, the local people called it Mbaru Niang. There are only seven of it, not more. It is similar with “Honai”, the traditional house from Papua. The difference between Mbaru Niang and Honai is on the shape, the roof shape of Mbaru Niang is more conical and extended to the grounds.

The roofs made of palm leaves and all of the construction of the house was built without the use of nails. This house built with the traditional concept using pegs and pen, and as reinforcement every core foundation it tied with rattan. This gorgeus concept attract many of Indonesian and foreign architects to come and learn the building concept.

via wikimapia.org

Mbaru Niang with a distinctive cone roof, consists of five floor. Each floor has their own function and name. The first floor was used as the place of the resident and the local people called it as lutur or tent. The second floor called lobo, was used as the place to keep food and goods.

The third floor or Lentar was used as the place to keep the corn seeds and other plants for planting. Just like all of the previous floors, the fourth floor also has a name and function called Lempa rae and it was used as the place to keep the food supplies that are useful if the harvest was unsuccessful. And the last floor or the fifth floor is Hekang kode, was used to keep the offerings that the owner saved to the ancestors.

With the rise of Wae Rebo growth population, it is necessary to make a new village. So the local people has divided into two large communities; middle-aged resident and children live in a new village called Kombo, while their parents and the adult live in Wae Rebo.

They have the same belief, Catholicism is their religion, although they still have Animism in their lives. They believe that the forest and the ground should be treated as human beings because they also have emotions and feelings, like human.

Wae Rebo people believed that they should respect the ground as a part of them. A ritual to ask for permission must be done before planting and digging, otherwise the ground will be scream and moan. And planting must be done regularly so the soil would not sad crying.

via 1.bp.blogspot.com

The long journey towards this village forced the society to became alienated from civilization, especially for education and health. And due to the limit of natural resources which can be used to eat, the adults and even chidren have to walk out of the village for about 4-hour even more, and came back with 15 kilograms food ingredients. In one year, every child in this village will carried goods with total weight of up to 2 tons.

Rather than the local tourists, foreign tourists are more interested and have more information about Wae Rebo. Since 2002, Wae Rebo has routinely receive visits of foreign tourists or researchers.

They came from France, Britain, United States, Taiwan, or other European. And in 2009, since the first time the tourist, travelers, and the researchers found Wae Rebo, there were 480 travelers had came to Wae Rebo. From the total, only 9 of them are Indonesian.

So, challenge yourself to found and explore this “jewel”. The journey to Wae Rebo is definitely an extraordinary and a tough journey. But then it all paid off, once you see how beautiful and gorgeus Wae Rebo is.

Tour to Wae Rebo, you need to prepare your budget starting from $90/pax. And don’t forget to bring your backpack, sandals and shoes (for tracking), your snack, your personal medicine, and of course you won’t miss every moment at there, so remind yourself and your partner to also bring the camera or your handycam.

It is guaranteed, that you will extremely falling in love with this beautiful Wae Rebo. Not only the village itself, but also the local people of Wae Rebo, and you will love their culture. So, now, prepare yourself to explore the very unique village, Wae Rebo.

And one more thing, prepare yourself not to cry when it is time for you to leave the village.